WEBVTT - Moon Rock Heists, Part One: Lunatic Heists and Space Law 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:27.600 Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.320 the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.520 much for tuning in. Who's that regular man on the moon? 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:40.560 Why it's none other than our super producer, mister Max Williams. 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:45.239 Max Moonman Williams. Yes, a lunar tic if ever there was. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.160 You are Noel Brown. Yeah, I've never been to the Moon. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.320 I don't even think it's real, to be honest. 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:56.280 And I am Ben Bollen. Oh thanks, who. 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.240 Very much believes in the reality of the moon. If 0:00:58.240 --> 0:00:59.000 I'm not mistaken. 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:03.800 Oh gosh. You know, everybody has these childhood dreams of 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.640 what they will be when they grow up, and once 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.000 upon a time, true story, nol I aspired to be 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.480 the first werewolf on the moon. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.279 Figure it out. Yeah, how are you planning on getting 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.720 getting like anthropy, getting the bite? How are you going 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:21.800 to expose yourself to this malady? 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.039 Well, that's what they would call a sunk cost, that 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.000 malign in particular. The idea was if you're always on 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:34.200 the moon, then you're not, you know, vulnerable to the 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:38.600 various downfalls of like anthropy. But you'll riddle me this, 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.200 what do we get when we cross an aspiring astronaut 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.440 whirlwind summer fleeting, shout out to our research associate, the 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:52.600 one and only Jordan, and a safe full of priceless 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:53.240 moon rocks. 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.200 What do we get? We get ridiculous history, Ben, I 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:06.920 think you know that. And can I also just say 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:08.960 that I do believe that the moon exists. I just 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.359 had to make that mention because I recently met a 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.919 fellow who said he did not believe that the moon existed, 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.400 not that the moon landing was faked, but that the 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:22.120 moon itself is entirely a fraud perpetrated on the people 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:22.840 of Earth. 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:25.960 Oh yeah, by whom who knows? 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:31.119 They Ah capital they capital t They. 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.000 Already got it. We got we got a wild ride 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.040 for you today, folks. Combines some elements of a heist. 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.280 You know, we love a heist, some history, some science fact. 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:42.960 Maybe a little science fiction will sprinkling there just for 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:45.360 the hell of it. But man, Jordan really found us 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.720 a dinger, as they said in the nineteen twenties. 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:55.919 Yes, yes, twenty three, scould do on you, Jordan Research Associate. God, 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:58.160 that guy's a legend. I love hanging out with him. 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:03.680 Jordan has introduced us to a guy named Thad Roberts. Now, 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:09.400 Thad is very good at physics, and Thad is also 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.600 super in love with his girlfriend and he really wants 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.560 to impress her. He borrows a jeep, he wears a 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:26.040 scuba suit. He gets sort of into indus shenanigans. And 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.280 this is also a story about moon rocks. 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.160 Yeah, it is that and his uh which you might 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:37.880 call a ragtag crew of interns. Jr. Jordan rentag our 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.040 Boy describes them as horny interns. We'll get to that 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.680 pulled off what should have been the perfect caper for 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.360 this our space age, and it does involve stealing and 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:53.400 attempting to fence lunar rocks, which triggered a man hunt 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.600 skiing operation and ended up with some serious jail times. 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.600 So strap in no pun intended for sex on the Moon. 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.680 A tale of romance, ambition, federal charges, and geology. It's 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:08.560 gonna rock your very ridiculous world. 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.000 Get it rock. That was George's joke. I thought that 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:12.480 was cool. 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:17.479 There are only two ways to get rocks from the moon, okay, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.920 and only one of those ways is legal. Either they 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:26.240 come to you on Earth or you go to them 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:31.120 via something like the Apollo program and purposely pick them up. 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:36.880 So with that former definition, scientists here on Earth, without 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:41.800 leaving the planet, have collected something north of two two 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.760 hundred and fifty pounds worth of lunar material that just 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.159 sort of crashed on Earth's surface at some point in 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.920 time as meteorites. And most of these things are going 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:59.960 to be recovered from Antarctica, Northern Africa, deserts in western Asia, 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.040 or what you would call the Middle. 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:08.760 East remote mainly inhospitable regions. The rest were obtained that 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.360 second way, which we'll call the hard way, from the 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.240 surface of the very real Moon itself. The first and 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.160 biggest batch were recovered during like you said, Ben America's 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.440 Apollo program. And how appropriate that I am joined in 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.520 my podcast studio by none other than my very sweet 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:28.440 little space boy, Apollo, the toy poodle. So Apollo gives 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.320 you a little puppy wave. They were the astronauts that 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.520 is able to bring back a whopping twenty two hundred 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.560 samples weighing in at eight hundred and forty two pounds 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:42.080 over the course of six missions between the years nineteen 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.040 sixty nine and nineteen seventy two, and these Moon fragments, 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:51.720 which span the geological spectrum from various sizes and grades 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.640 of material rocks to pebbles to sand to dust, are 0:05:55.760 --> 0:06:02.240 stored very gingerly in controlled, highly controlled situations, including nitrogen 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.359 filled cabinets at NASA's Lunar Curation Lab, which is a 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:11.680 thing in order to avoid contamination and oxidization from Earth's atmosphere, 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.960 not to mention to potentially contain some space germs that 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.320 people were real worried about for a while, but more 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:19.960 on that later. 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:20.919 Yeah. 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:25.560 Yeah, and the oxidation, as we'll see, is the primary concern. 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:30.600 Note again, what we're saying here, folks, Again, it's two 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:36.480 and fifty pounds worth of moon stuff that landed on Earth, 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.520 and it's eight hundred and forty two pounds of stuff 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:48.000 humans provably brought back from the Apollo program. The largest 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:53.120 moon rock ever recovered from the Apollo missions is a 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.360 twenty six pound chonky boy, so chonky that we call 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:02.600 it Big Mulley, named in honor of the geology team 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:08.479 leader of Apollo sixteen, Bill Muhlberger. There's another money to 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.000 his friends, no doubt, Well, Big Mulley to his friends. 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:12.720 Yeah. 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.960 There is also the Genesis Rock, which is believed to 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:22.560 be one of the oldest things humans know about from 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.680 the surface of the Moon. It's somewhere between four and 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.800 five billion years old, which we acknowledge is a heck 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:32.480 of a margin. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.960 Yeah, and let's not forget about the Soviets. They went 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.080 up there too. They actually sent a dog up there, 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.440 quite cruelly, poor little Laika, who didn't make it. Back. 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:46.120 In the early seventies, a trio of unmanned Soviet robotic 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:50.520 probes Douglas thankfully brought back ten point six ounces of 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.000 material over the course of three missions. Not nearly as impressive. 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.480 No shade on the Soviets. They were definitely, you know, 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:58.880 in the space race, but this is not quite the 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:02.440 hall that the emission brought back. More recently, in the 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.520 twenty twenties, we've got China entering the Chat with two 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.880 Unmann probes, bringing back around eight pounds of lunar material, 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.720 including the very first from the story to Dark Side 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.000 of the Moon, famous by the Pink Floyd album. Of note, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.200 of course, it's the only place that was made famous 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.280 by that's not true. But the US, as we've mentioned, 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.040 and as was probably pretty clear by now, possesses the 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.560 vast majority of all this moon stuff. And for the 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.760 purposes of this episode, we're gonna mainly be staying in 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:34.439 the US. 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.760 Yes, because we will get in trouble if we mentioned 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:43.280 the Soviet or Chinese lunar possessions also like a gata space, 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.360 but didn't get to the moon, because getting to the 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:52.800 Moon is very, very difficult, Max, if you could give 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.400 us some difficult music, something that gives us a sense 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.079 of epic adventure. 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.920 Perfect perhaps a little adversity, a little bit of tension there, 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:07.559 I love. 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:14.239 It, yeah, perfectly. So getting to the Moon is already 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:20.079 a crazy endeavor. It is two hundred and thirty eight thousand, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:25.240 nine hundred miles from the Earth to the lunar surface 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:30.240 and back, and both of those points, point A and 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.960 point z are moving the entire time, right. 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.640 And if you hear from people in your day to 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:40.280 day lives who maybe are skeptical about the moon landing 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.720 being real, something that we've covered at length on stuff 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.679 that don't want you to know, a lot of the 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:51.400 reasoning behind that is the absolute mammoth task that is 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:53.600 going to and from the Moon, the logistics of it 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:59.559 being bonkers, and what was available and possible in the 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.840 nineteen sixties. It just seems sometimes on first glance that 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.240 this was a way tall order for the technology of 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:08.800 the time. And I do come down the side of 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:10.679 you know, the moon landing was real, just for the record, 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:11.559 but just putting that. 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.720 Out there, all right, Well, it's good to dream, Brony. 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:21.400 We all know the moon landings were real. There is 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:27.280 provable evidence you can see with a proper telescope, right, 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:31.760 a consumer level telescope, as Noel said, check out stuff 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.880 they don't want you to know. We dive in depth 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.520 to that. And what's interesting about what you're saying here, Nol, 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.960 is that if we look back in the nineteen sixties, 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.800 the boffins already had a very good grasp of what 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:51.240 we would call germ theory, the danger of pathogens, the 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:57.040 danger of bacteria, micro organisms, viruses. So the eggheads are asking, 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.839 the moonheads are asking, what what if we land on 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.920 the lunar surface and we run into an outbreak situation? 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:12.520 What if we find something small that hitches the ride 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:17.320 back to Earth and gets released in the ecosystem and 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.559 it's an alien invasive species. 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.280 And this is maybe the sprinkling of science fiction that 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:26.520 we promised this idea of a moon plague, these alien 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.480 pathogens brought back to your point, Ben, hitching a ride 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.120 on the old Space Shuttle back to Earth, potentially causing 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:40.080 some sort of catastrophic, potentially even extinction level event. The 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.080 idea of back contamination was the same reason that the 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.319 astronauts in the first three Apollo missions were kept in 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:50.760 quarantine for three weeks upon their return. NASA spent quite 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:55.080 a bit of money on this real or imagined problem, 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.080 around seven point eight million or eighty million adjusted for inflation, 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.920 in the form of eighty six thousand square foot lunar 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.440 receiving laboratory at the Johnson Space Center there in Houston, 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.480 as a place to quarantine the materials and the astronauts. 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.960 This is also where the samples were processed in study, 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:17.040 and one somewhat ethically dubious experiment that was carried out 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:22.920 there involved feeding grains of lunar dust to mice, quail, quail, 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.080 interesting and other life forms who were then monitored for 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:27.880 any ill effects. 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:33.240 Thankfully, Yeah, everything worked out, you know, uh, people, right, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:39.439 everything's great. Scientists were in fact astonished at good results, 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:44.320 and they said, look, if you put plants in lunar soil, 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:50.000 they they grow better, they thrive better than they would 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.320 in earth soil. However, we're still very concerned about this 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.560 idea of back contamination. So if you're a worker at 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.920 the lunar receiving laboratory at the Johnson Space Center, you 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.320 have to do the whole twelve monkeys thing. You have 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.360 to be decontaminated. You got to strip off all your 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:13.360 lab clothes, you got a shower, and then you can't 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:17.240 put on your clothing right after your shower. Instead, you 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:22.560 have to walk naked as atom through an ultraviolet lightmath 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.160 and then you get to put on your street duds 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:31.000 and exit. Ultimately, all of this effort was let's see 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.600 it this way, it was a an error on the 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:39.040 side of caution. It turned out there was no chemical 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:44.839 evidence of life in any form from these lunar samples, 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:50.600 so there was no insidious germ, microbe, bacteria, or virus. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.000 And I think we all aren't particularly mad at the 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.280 idea of airing on the side of caution. There were 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.680 a lot of unknowns in these early days, so good 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:01.559 on you science for looking out for the rest of 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:11.440 us here back on Earth. Man Jordan headlined this next 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:15.439 section with a fabulous phrase, which is protect the rocks 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.040 at all costs. The other challenge for NASA at this 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.520 time was protecting those rocks at all costs from deterioration. 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:26.720 These are very important artifacts, very valuable artifacts, very rare 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.640 deterioration that is due to the oxygen and Earth's atmosphere. 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.080 As we mentioned, oxidization is the enemy of the Moon rock, 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.040 the humble Moon rock. Exposure to air would cause these 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:41.360 rocks to instantly start to deteriorate through that process of oxidization, 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.160 which would both damage the rock and make it much 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.040 less scientifically viable, if not entirely useless, because it was 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:52.720 effectively contaminated at that point. Yeah. Yeah, because to the 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.160 moon rocks, the Earth's atmosphere is the alien bit, right, 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:56.040 I like that. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.160 Yeah, because the idea here is that the oxidization and 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:06.760 would break down the chemical components, right, the overall mixtape 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.720 of whatever lunar material means, It would break it down 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.880 into an earthly thing, just a collection of stuff you 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.240 can find on the planet today, So. 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:19.760 Wouldn't be special anymore. 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.200 Right, It's not Christmas every if it's Christmas every day. 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:27.000 Decided to say so. They want to keep these samples 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:33.720 chemically identical right control for variables chemically identical to what 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.760 they were when they were on the moon. So they 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:43.280 put in this quite strict, robust procedure for recovery. Let's 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:49.040 say we're all astronauts, folks, you, Max, Noel and yours truly, 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:55.280 we are at the moon. We are trying to get 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.800 our moon stuff. And then we get the orders from 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:03.720 mission control and misig Control tells us the following. They say, look, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.840 you got to take your fiberglass bag out with you 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:10.720 on your moon walk, and then you've got to put 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.320 your stuff in there. And then you've got to take 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.240 your fiberglass bag and you've got to put it in 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:21.840 a vacuum sealed metal container. And if we are the 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:27.160 astronauts talking to Michig Control, we're going to be complaining. 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:33.200 We'll say this smells like gunpowder. This is a weird vibe. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.920 I'm picturing these vacuum steel containers again, just with a 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.400 sprinkling of sci fi as being those kind of cylinder 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.200 type things that almost look like a giant thermos with 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.359 the twisty top on it, and it makes it really satisfying, 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.360 you know, when you close it perhaps some dry ice 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.160 type steam comes out, you know, I love it. 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:58.880 Yeah, this is also the reason they are reporting this 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.640 smell or us in this scenario, shout out the quizzard. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:08.600 We're reporting this smell of gunpowder in the spacecraft because 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.879 the moon dust is on our suits and it is 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:17.119 oxidizing when exposed to an earth like atmosphere. 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.240 Can't save all the particles. We're gonna lose that dust 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.120 to oxidization. But they did the best they could. 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.639 And I love that you're pointing out that that awesome 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:31.639 pH thermos idea with a canister, because there is a 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.359 bigger canister at plate. We could say when this lunar 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.480 material makes it back here to Tea, the fancy name 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:45.520 for Earth. So instead of having a giant thermos, which 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:51.000 would be an awesome idea, I'm laughing. I'm picturing a 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:55.640 gigantic thermos somewhere in a space center, all right. So 0:17:56.040 --> 0:18:00.880 instead of building a giant thermos, there are clean rooms 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:05.240 that essentially function the same way. They are some of 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:10.600 the strictest clean rooms in the world. They have a 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:15.479 small army of air filters, and these air filters ensure 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:19.720 the room contains no more than get this folks one 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:25.920 hundred particles larger than zero point five microns per cubic 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:30.000 feet of air. No offense to anybody living in the 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:34.919 fanciest place imaginable. This room is cleaner than your house. 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:40.040 Oh yeah, I mean in comparison, typical indoor air might 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.240 have as many as a million particles per cubic foot, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.720 likely more so for this clean room. Folks entering or 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:53.119 required to wear contamination suits or decontamination suits rather. But 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:57.280 even with these added precautions, the samples are still not 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:02.040 handled directly. Researchers prepared the rocks in a vacuum sealed 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.080 cabinet through those kind of gloves you might see in 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.919 like a movie like Outbreak, you know, or You're through 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:14.880 the Yeah, of course, multi layered gloves. High purity nitrogen 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.080 is then pumped in to keep the samples completely free 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.000 of moisture. Some of the practices are a little less 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:27.240 high tech. They used some very uh commercially available like 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:32.240 kitchen gadgets actually to slice these rocks. To bisect them, 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:36.240 a Hobart Deli meat slicing machine a little bit modded 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.919 out outfitted with a diamond edged blade. 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.520 This episode is brought to you by Hobart Deli meat 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:49.280 slicer pay extra for the diamond. Also, I think Nolan 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:53.080 and I just forgot we are an audio podcast because folks, 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.120 when we when we were agreeing about the gloves, we 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:01.800 were talking about the glass in case that has you 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.800 put gloves on yourself up to your forearms or wearing 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.400 your suit obviously, and then you put those gloves into 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:16.639 series vapatures that have their own gloves built into the container. 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.439 I just didn't want us to miss that because we 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:21.640 are an audio well well. 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:23.960 And the visual that you missed maybe was Ben and 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.280 I both reaching our arms out and wiggling our fingers 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.160 at each other. That's the visual. There another low five 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:32.479 technique I guess you could call it would be just 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:35.280 cracking them open with the old rock hammer. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.359 You getting situations, you know what I mean. And this 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:44.199 is the issue here. NASA went through a lot of 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:47.560 a lot of headaches, a lot of bureaucratic hoops to 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:53.400 construct this facility and to establish these procedures, which, by 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:58.359 the way, would later inform our friends in Soviet Russia 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:03.440 and in China. NASA built the way to encounter this stuff. 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.480 Can I just say I think it's incredible that they 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.399 you know, with all this money, they did not even 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.280 need to invent a new thing because Hobart already did 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:14.520 it with their meat slicer. They were just like, Noah, 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:16.359 it just needs a different blade. Have you? Are you 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.840 aware been of the audio commentary for the DVD of 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.600 the seminal nineteen nineties apocalyptic space movie Armageddon. 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.000 I am lightly aware. I have not listened to it. 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.960 Well, I've only heard clips. But the one that always 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:35.119 makes the news's the internet, I guess is Ben Affleck 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.360 did his own audio commentary. And you may remember famous 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.240 scene where the space boffins kind of face off with 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.960 the drill guys, you know, the burly rough and tumbled 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:52.520 the drill team headed up by what's his name Bruce Willis, 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:56.240 and Bruce Willis just dresses them down, saying you don't 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.879 know a thing about drilling, and you know you did 0:21:59.880 --> 0:22:01.600 it all wrong, this, that, and the other. When they're 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:04.600 presented with the space drill that the NASA guys have 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:08.560 come up with, and he's just like, Ben Affleck just 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:13.240 finds this whole scenario completely implausible and says he said 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:16.159 to the director Jerry Bruckheimer, wouldn't it be easier to 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:20.240 train astronauts to drill than to train drillers to be astronauts, 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:23.040 and Jerry Bruckheimer's response, shut the fuck up. 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:26.280 Yes, I remember that clip. 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:32.040 Also, our Bruce Willis character here is probably gonna be 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:36.679 the first lunar sample curator, a real job assigned to 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:43.040 a gentleman named Elbert, a King, a dot king. He 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:46.359 gets this first batch of moon rocks. He's supposed to 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:51.240 curate these lunar samples. He is not impressed. In nineteen 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:55.439 eighty nine, he says, the moment was truly history, but 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.040 there was little we could observe or say. We counted 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:02.520 the rocks, we described the size. 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.600 And shape of each piece. Put him down. 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:09.720 But they look like lumps of charcoal in the bottom 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:16.080 of a backyard barbecue grill. So Elbert Elbert is being 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.800 a bit of a buskill. He's super not impressed. But 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:25.320 this is super big for history, because since nineteen seventy nine, 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:29.560 the majority of what we can call American moon rocks 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:35.040 have been stored at the Lunar Sample Laboratory facility over 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:37.600 at the Johnson Space Center out in Houston. 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:40.080 I do think it's funny to make the distinction of like, 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.760 you know, American versus Russian versus Chinese moon rocks, because 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:46.439 they're all moon rocks, y'all, and the moon doesn't belong 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:47.600 to any of us. 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:49.880 That's right. I was despite that. 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:51.119 Flag we planted, you know. 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:55.399 Oh oh, come on, fellow vex loologist in the crowd. 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.159 Study years of flags. It's fun to put a flag 0:23:59.240 --> 0:23:59.800 on things. 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:01.800 Everybody likes to put a flag on things, you know. 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:04.280 But I'm just saying I think there were. It is 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.960 widely understood that no one, there's no there's no there's 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:12.480 no coling DIBs on the moon, right yeah. 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:18.440 Right there. You're referring specifically to the Moon Treaty from 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:23.359 the United Nations, or sometimes called the Moon Agreement. It 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:28.480 was created on December eighteenth, nineteen seventy nine. Which is 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:32.840 why eighty four percent or about six hundred pounds for 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:37.760 everybody keeping note here, eighty four percent or six hundred 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:43.200 pounds of quote unquote American moon rocks have been stored 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:48.080 at this place in Houston. It's supposed to be like 0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:53.160 a doomsday vault. It can withstand one thousand years of 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:57.919 being underwater. But this is where we get to the 0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:03.000 reason this episode is two part series. Noel, riddle me this. 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:09.320 Where are the remaining sixteen percent of these American moon rocks? 0:25:09.800 --> 0:25:13.160 I'm so glad you asked, Ben. In the nineteen seventies, 0:25:13.280 --> 0:25:16.680 NASA adopted the don't put all your eggs in one 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:20.320 basket approach, which I think we all can get behind. 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:23.879 It's good to diversify, and secretly moved a one hundred 0:25:23.920 --> 0:25:26.920 and fifty pound portion of this collection to another installation 0:25:27.160 --> 0:25:30.199 for safe keeping in the dead of night. Since two 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:33.000 thousand and two, they've been stored at the White Sands 0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:35.840 Test Facility in New Mexico, which you may be familiar 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:39.960 with from discussions of nuclear tests. Isn't that right, Ben, 0:25:40.040 --> 0:25:43.280 am I remembering the correct details from history on the 0:25:43.280 --> 0:25:44.640 White Sands Test Facility. 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:45.560 You nailed it. 0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:47.520 You nailed it out there in New Mexico. 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:48.000 Yeah. 0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:52.080 So, over the years, samples of these rocks have been 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:56.280 sort of farmed out or contracted out to a bunch 0:25:56.359 --> 0:26:01.320 of research teams across the planet. And these research teams 0:26:01.359 --> 0:26:07.119 are equal eggheads and boffins themselves. They're studying everything they 0:26:07.119 --> 0:26:11.359 can learn about these samples. Some of them have also 0:26:11.520 --> 0:26:17.919 been put into museums. Hashtag Indiana Jones it belongs in 0:26:18.000 --> 0:26:21.680 a museum you know you can find Yeah, you can 0:26:21.680 --> 0:26:25.360 find them displayed in the American Museum of Natural History 0:26:25.680 --> 0:26:28.399 in New York, which I know we both love. You 0:26:28.440 --> 0:26:31.440 can find them in the Houston Museum of Natural Science. 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:37.880 And another thing that we always recommend the Griffith Observatory 0:26:38.040 --> 0:26:40.000 out there in Los Angeles. 0:26:40.080 --> 0:26:41.160 Gosh, I love that place. 0:26:41.240 --> 0:26:42.800 I love it too, And they've got a really cool 0:26:43.560 --> 0:26:47.679